Measuring professionalism in a physiatry residency training program

A 12-item questionnaire modeled after the one prepared by the American Board of Internal Medicine dealing with professionalism was distributed to 122 physiatry residents representing six training programs, of whom 59% (72) responded. The mean item score on the survey was 7.7 (SD = 1.0) on a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 represents the highest level of professionalism. The internal reliability of the questionnaire was found to be satisfactory (Cronbach's alpha = 0.75). A factor analysis of the questionnaire items resulted in three factors explaining 64% of the variance. These factors were: excellence, honor/integrity, and altruism/respect; Eigen values were 3.35, 2.37, and 1.31, respectively. These factors are similar to those obtained in the American Board of Internal Medicine survey. This similarity is a positive feature in ongoing efforts to develop a reliable tool for measuring professionalism in physiatry residency training.